Symptoms | Heart muscle thickening

Symptoms

Due to the insufficient pumping capacity resulting from the pathological thickening of the heart muscle, the patient feels a reduction in performance above a certain degree of severity, especially under physical stress. In the initial stage, however, the disease can also proceed completely without symptoms, which explains why the thickening of the heart muscle is often diagnosed late. From a certain degree of severity, shortness of breath or shortness of breath is added.

Swollen legs (edema), chest pain (angina pectoris), cardiac arrhythmia, dizziness, syncope and weakness can also occur. Those affected must also frequently urinate at night. All these symptoms are signs of heart failure.

Diagnostics

The thickening of the heart muscle can be determined by a cardiologist. The doctor will first ask about the existing symptoms. These can already provide an indication of a cardiac cause.

If a thickening of the heart muscle is suspected, an echocardiography of the heart is usually performed first, i.e. an ultrasound examination. This allows us to determine whether the ventricles are wider than usual. If there is still uncertainty or if there are special questions, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can also be ordered.

Therapy/treatment

The therapy of myocardial thickening depends on the identified cause. It is important to prevent the disease from progressing. Since the most common cause is arterial hypertension (high blood pressure), the blood pressure must be optimally adjusted.Various antihypertensive drugs, such as beta blockers, are suitable for this purpose.

The physician will select a suitable preparation depending on the severity of the patient’s hypertension and other diseases. If the cause of the thickening of the heart muscle is a heart valve defect, for example a narrowing (stenosis) or insufficient closing ability (insufficiency) of the aortic valve, heart valve surgery may also have to be considered. This will also depend on the severity of the valve disease and the age of the patient. The defective valve can, for example, be replaced by a mechanical or biological heart valve.